IoT for Ambient Assisted Living: Care4Me - A Healthcare Support System

Research activities on healthcare support systems mainly focus on people in their own homes or nurses and doctors in hospitals. A limited amount of research aims at supporting caregivers that work with people with disabilities in assisted living facilities (ALFs). This chapter explores and applies the Internet of Things to the ALF context. In particular, it presents the design, the implementation, and the experimental evaluation of Care4Me, a system supporting the daily activities of assistants. The requirements for designing and implementing Care4Me derive from a literature analysis and from a user study. The solution combines wearable and mobile technologies. With this healthcare support system, caregivers can be automatically alerted of potentially hazardous situations. Furthermore, inhabitants can require assistance instantly and from any point of the facility. The system was evaluated in two ways. The authors performed a functional test with a group of professional caregivers, and deployed the system in an ALF in Italy, collecting the opinions of caregivers and inhabitants.